Amanda Knox Is Officially Innocent

Amanda Knox Is Officially Innocent

On Friday, Italy's highest court overturned Amanda Knox's conviction for murdering her roommate in 2007. Knox was first convicted in 2009, but she and her former boyfriend Rafaele Sollecito were acquitted in a new trial two years later. Both faced 25 or more years in prison if their convictions had been upheld.

Knox and Sollecito both spent four years in prison after being convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher, a 21-year British woman. Kercher and Knox were sharing a house in Perugia, Italy, where they were both studying abroad.

An Italian court found Knox guilty in a new trial in 2014, after she had returned to the United States. Knox, now 27, is working as a reporter in her hometown of Seattle.

The case against Knox was marked by questionable police practices and salacious theories. The prosecutor in her original case argued that she and Sollecito murdered Kercher with the help of another man, Rudy Guede, during a night of group sex gone awry. During Knox and Sollecito's first trial, it was revealed that crime scene personnel walked through the house where Kercher was murdered without protective gear, possibly contaminating evidence.

The case created an international firestorm and put Knox (then a college student who spoke little Italian) under intense scrutiny. Coverage of the original trial was filled with slut-shaming and speculation based on her nickname — "Foxy Knoxy" — and her alibi: Knox claimed she spent the night of Kercher's murder smoking pot and having sex with Sollecito.

The court did uphold one decision: Knox was found guilty of slander for implicating Perugia bar owner Patrick Lumumba in Kercher's murder — but she has already served her sentence.